Toward a Sustainable OER Ecosystem: The Case for OER Stewardship

By Lisa Petrides, Douglas Levin, and C. Edward Watson

The following is from the above link, with my comments in italics:

Contribute: OER stewards actively contribute to efforts, whether financially or via in-kind contributions, to advance the awareness, improvement, and distribution of OER; how do we define “steward”? what are examples of “efforts”? and

Attribute: OER stewards practice conspicuous attribution, ensuring that all who create or remix OER are properly and clearly credited for their contributions; what do we do when we see something that is not attributed? and

Release: OER stewards ensure OER can be released and used beyond the course and platform in which it was created or delivered; this is absolutely needed; how many times have I been puzzled or struggled with trying to work on a different device/platform? and

Empower: OER stewards are inclusive and strive to meet the diverse needs of all learners, including by supporting the participation of new and non-traditional voices in OER creation and adoption. This requires reaching out to colleagues as well as students who are less comfortable with OER, and perhaps suspicious of it.

Lora Taub-Pervizpour, “Reclaiming the Web” (this is a longer talk Lora gave at the Domains conference — and the piece that inspired us to invite her here)

“…Nick Couldry, a British media scholar, who argues in his book Why Voice Mattersthat we are experiencing a contemporary crisis of voice—across political, economic, social domains.At root, he argues, is a pervasive doctrine of neoliberalism that denies voice matters.”

Documentary studies — close reading, “close enough to hurt”

“Get proximate” to the social justice issues that need our attention

Audrey Watters, “The Web We Need to Give Students” (this is one of my favorite pieces about Domain of One’s Own — many of you may have already read it, but I figured I’d add it to the list in case)

Social Justice and education

What do our students’ domains look like after they leave the course in which it was created?

“This lack of a website has been a regular talking point for institutions and colleagues who have invited me out for lectures or workshops. It’s an inconvenience but one I plan to continue doing because of the mass of harassment I expect to get when Digital Whiteness and Medieval Studies (forthcoming, ArcPress/WMU) comes out as it discusses online white supremacy (white supremacists/white nationalists/KKK/MRA etc.).”

“Most museums and art history textbooks contain a predominantly neon white display of skin tone when it comes to classical statues and sarcophagi. This has an impact on the way we view the antique world. The assemblage of neon whiteness serves to create a false idea of homogeneity — everyone was very white! — across the Mediterranean region. The Romans, in fact, did not define people as “white”; where, then, did this notion of race come from?”